1. Field of the Invention
The present general inventive concept relates to an ink supply unit to supply ink to a plurality of printheads arranged in a direction transverse to the advancing direction of a printing medium, and an image forming apparatus having the same.
2. Description of the Related Art
Typically, an image forming apparatus such as an inkjet printer prints a color image on the surface of printing medium (such as paper, fabric, etc.) by firing a droplet of printing ink onto a desired location of printing medium.
A conventional inkjet printer generally reciprocates in a perpendicular relation with respect to the advancing direction of the printing medium. That is, the inkjet printer printhead reciprocates widthwise to the printing medium if the printing medium is traveling along its lengthwise direction (as is typical), to print an image onto the printing medium. Therefore, this conventional inkjet printer prints at a relatively slow speed due to the required reciprocating movement.
A new type of inkjet printer employs a plurality of printheads arranged widthwise to the printing medium, and it omits reciprocating movement of the ink cartridge to therefore provide speedy image printing. This new type of inkjet printer is generally called an “array printhead type inkjet printer.”
The array printhead type inkjet printer feeds ink of different colors to a plurality of printheads arranged in a transverse direction relative to the movement of the printing medium. In order to feed the color inks to the printheads individually, the structure of ink supply unit becomes complicated. Assembling the printheads so that the printheads are disposed at the uniform height is also a problem.